Okrent takes us through the history of constructed languages from Hildegard von Bingen (Saint Hildegard, or Sibyl of the Rhine), a 12th Century Garman nun, composer and polymath, who gave us the first documented invented language, the purpose of which is long forgotten, to the 17th Century English Clergyman John Wilkins, who’s 600 page opus An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) attempts to categorise no less than everything in the universe according to a branching hierarchical scheme.